She was instrumental in driving city diversity forward
Tamiko Stanley, who moved the City of Pittsburgh’s workforce toward greater racial diversity under former Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, will be honored for her work with the declaration of Oct. 29 as “Tamiko Stanley Day.”
“The recognition is a great honor, but really, at the end of the day it’s about the work and the importance of the work,” she told the New Pittsburgh Courier in an Oct. 24 phone interview from her new home in Maryland. “People respect the progress we were able to make. At the end of the day, you have to have people with the right attitude and the open-mindedness to share the vision.”
The proclamation from City Council comes just over 10 years after Stanley was hired away from the Pittsburgh Pirates to serve as assistant Equal Employment Opportunity Director. Within months she had put the Diversity365 initiative in place to systematize increased minority and women hiring throughout all city departments.
And while recruiting and hiring for city positions was her job, her focus was broader. Noticing that Blacks who had been successfully recruited to corporate and public positons in and around Pittsburgh were frequently leaving after only a short stay, she and Dina Clark—now diversity director at Covestro—launched Urban Connect in 2010, to link newcomers to the restaurants, hair salons, and other amenities many had said they found lacking.
“Companies were just bringing folks in and dumping them in Fox Chapel. So, they’d be getting their hair cut at Phillip Pelusi, and they’d have no connection to the city and its Black community,” Stanley told the Courier at the time. “They wouldn’t know the restaurants, churches or entertainment spots. So, other than work, they’re isolated—and ready to leave.”
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